VampireWitch Politics
by charrrmed
Summary: After spending five hours under duress, Bonnie stands still as the pieces in her life rearrange themselves. Klaus explains how he makes penance to dead witches, and Stefan plays his hand without considering the ramifications. Set in the scene where Bonnie spots Damon on her way out of Klaus' house in 3.18.


**Summary**: After spending five hours under duress, Bonnie stands still as the pieces in her life rearrange themselves. Klaus explains how he makes penance to dead witches, and Stefan plays his hand without considering the ramifications. Set in the scene where Bonnie spots Damon on her way out of Klaus' house in 3.18.

**About the Timeline**: Esther was yanked back to the other side when Abby was turned. Because I refuse to believe that Abby's death, a break in the Bennett's magical line, only stopped Esther from being able to do one specific freaking spell. She told Rebekah she was dying, but that was a lie.

**A/N**: I've created an AO3 account using the same screen name as I do here. I'll continue posting my racy stories here, but in case ff ever takes them down, know that they're also posted on AO3. The NC-17 fic I'm working on is a Bonnie/Jeremy story.

/

**Vampire-Witch Politics**

"_Go on. Help him. Save the man who turned your mother into a vampire."_

It wasn't two seconds since Klaus had spoken those words, yet they were ringing in Bonnie's ears and giving her goosebumps on her arms and on her head. The cruelty of his words spread out in tiny waves on her head and limbs. Her neck dipped as if Klaus' words had literally cut her down an inch.

She had experience with her failures getting thrown in her face. She remembered when the very man hanging from chains and bleeding on the tiles had heckled her about her inability to save Caroline. But what Klaus just said cut even deeper than Damon's words ever could have. Klaus didn't know her. He did not know a single thing about her, where she's been, or how she deals with things; he didn't know her. But he had just pegged her. Because her instinct _had_ been to help Damon. It's what she'd done since she'd learned the truth about vampires. She helped him (for Elena or because it was convenient to everything else she was doing at the time), and then she sniped at him, but she helped him.

And Klaus sounded sure of the conclusion he'd drawn about her and he even sounded like he pitied her. And she hated having her weak traits and less than stellar decisions thrown back in her face, especially by the likes of Damon and Klaus. She wasn't used to it, so it always rankled her when it happened.

Her messenger bag dug into her shoulder as if to underscore Klaus' words. Her mother's grimoire rested in the bag, the very grimoire she'd just used to unlink Klaus and his siblings.

Klaus left her side, and she remembered to be on guard. But she was exhausted.

"Say when," he said conspiratorially, his eyebrows practically at his hairline and the corners of his mouth almost reaching his ears. He grabbed the delirious vampire by the chin and looked in his eyes and rasped, "Leave. _Escape_. _Find_ your freedom."

Bonnie slowly cocked her head when Damon started to do as Klaus bade. Her face tightened when his flesh started tearing as he tried to pull his hands out of the bear trap. He moaned and wheezed from the pain. Bonnie couldn't stop looking at him. He was tired and his face hung and his eyes dropped, a result of whatever Rebekah had been doing to him the entire time she herself been under Klaus' microscope. It dawned on her now that his had been the scream that she had heard.

She'd never thought about torturing Damon. She had thought about killing him, so much so that she dreamed it in her sleep at one point, but she had never thought about hiding him some place and inflicting pain on him and watching him struggle through it. And now that it was happening in front of her, and she'd been given the power to stop it to boot, she was...curious.

She wondered if Klaus would stop it regardless of whether or not she said a word or if she was about to watch Damon's wrists snap off.

Damon's eyes closed as he struggled, and the word that would give him relief still wasn't coming out of Bonnie's lips. She has helped him many times. He helped her once when she needed someone to transport her body while she was dead. And recently she'd been left wanting of any compassion from him. So now...

"Klaus!"

Stefan's loud voice tripped the speed of her heart. She hadn't heard the front door open and slam shut, so taken had she been by Damon literally tearing himself apart.

The younger Salvatore appeared next to her on the archway and touched her shoulder in reassurance, and she flinched and ducked her shoulder from under his burning touch and stepped aside. There was nothing reassuring about him. He didn't notice, because his eyes had caught his suffering brother, but Klaus noticed.

The Original vampire grabbed Damon's face and said, "Slow. Down." Thus Damon continued trying to escape but took a break whenever his wrists hurt too much.

Stefan left Bonnie's side and walked into the room.

"Stefan, my friend," Klaus said cordially, opening his arms and walking to the man. "How would you like to be responsible for the annihilation of vampires everywhere?"

And faster than she could blink, Klaus pounced on Stefan and punched him to the ground. The younger vampire fell on his knees, the duffel bag in his hand dropping to the floor, the contents inside of it clanging.

Bonnie held herself tight. She was rooted to the floor and observed what was happening.

Klaus threw another punch, Stefan raised his hand to block it, snarling, and Klaus easily pushed it aside and landed the hit. Using his speed, Stefan quickly got up and put several paces between him and the angered vampire.

"What is going on?" Rebekah asked, returning and walking past Bonnie.

Once again, the frazzled witch hadn't heard anyone approaching.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Stefan huffed.

"You turned a witch." Klaus sped up, grabbed Stefan's neck, and slammed him into the wall to Bonnie's right. "Do you know what I do to vampires who turn witches?" he growled. Using the hold he had on his neck, he threw Stefan to the floor.

Stefan noisily worked his throat, feeling the imprint of Klaus' fingers.

"That's the fifth witch, Stefan," Klaus said while walking away from him, sounding like a professor at the beginning of his lecture.

Meanwhile, Damon caught Bonnie's attention when he attempted to break away anew.

"What did you do to him?" Rebekah asked.

"Don't worry about him," Klaus answered. Turning his attention back to Stefan, he continued, "In one thousand years, four witches have been turned and you just added a fifth to the list. How do you suppose the witches on the Other Side feel about that? Eadu in England. Ceindeg in Wales ; Itohan in seventeenth century Benin; Agnes right here in North America. 1936. Harlem. On Lenox Avenue. And now...Abbeline Bennett."

His pronunciation of her mother's full name commandeered Bonnie's full attention.

"Mystic Falls, Virginia, twenty-first century." He remembered the names and the places in hopes that that would somehow appease the witches, to know that at least one vampire did not take the unnatural death of one of their own lightly. It didn't make him feel any better by any means. Every time he got the report that a witch had been turned, his stomach clenched, and he felt like he was running out of time. Some said he was just a bit paranoid for that. They never said it to his face (except for Rebekah and Kol), but he knew. He also knew that they didn't understand.

"A witch created vampires, Stefan," he pressed. "As you now know. And what was created by magic in most cases can be destroyed by magic."

"We're not a special case" he whispered in confidence although he stood several paces from Stefan, and everyone heard him. At his normal volume, he said, "You should also know how _easy_ it is for them to cross that lovely veil between the two sides. How many witches do you think they'll tolerate being turned before they band together and eradicate us from existence, hmm? Guess. Guess!" he screamed.

"It is better to kill a witch than to turn a witch. Death," he lectured, "is part of Nature. The natural order of things. _Vampires_ are not. Never forget."

He walked up to Stefan and said, "Now. Why did you come see me?"

Klaus smiled and he looked amiable, but everything in Stefan's body warned him to be prepared. The old vampire wasn't done making his point. "Damon," he answered. Once he'd found Alaric unconscious at the boardinghouse sans Damon, there were few options for what could've happened to his brother. "I want to make an exchange."

"Why would I possibly be interested? After all, I didn't take him. This is Beka's revenge. You know how she is," he said, lifting his eyebrows. Again there was the cordiality that spoke to how far back they went.

"Finn is dead," Stefan announced. He heard Rebekah's small gasp, but his eyes were on Klaus. The man only smiled wider. Stefan became more on edge as the seconds ticked by.

"You killed my brother?" Rebekah ground out.

Damon resumed trying to escape.

Bonnie's mouth was wired shut. They'd killed Finn. Stefan had probably left the Original's body to come here. The Originals were linked; they could've been free of all of them. If she'd been a little late with the spell. But she hadn't been. She was never late. Always timely. In this instance she'd been timely for Klaus. And Rebekah, and Elijah, and Kol. This time, it was them that she'd brought back from the brink of death.

"And you're wondering why I'm still here," Klaus mused. "How could I survive when I was bound to my brother? Kill one, kill all." He stepped back and looked at Bonnie.

Stefan slowly looked at her, connecting the dots.

Bonnie opened her mouth, but it was a second before anything came out. "I unbound them." Her voice was small and unsteady. "He forced me. He threatened Jeremy and my mother-I had no choice."

"It's okay," he whispered.

What Stefan said communicated understanding and even support, but she didn't feel it. She was thinking ahead to how it was going to be up to her to figure something else out now that a mass killing of the Originals was out of the question.

"I want to trade," Stefan said, voice strong. "Eight stakes made of white oak, the part of Wickery Bridge you forgot to burn. Give me Damon, and they're all yours."

"And what of Bonnie?" Klaus asked with his hands clasped behind his back. "What shall I do with her?"

Stefan didn't think anything of Klaus' question until he looked at the girl in question. As Klaus continued to speak, she looked at him as if she was absorbing everything Klaus was saying, as if she was asking him why Klaus had a point.

"You came for Damon. What of your witch? Five grueling hours; I'm sure she could use a break. A little relaxation; it was a very important spell she did. But you stroll in with your bargaining chips. And ask for Damon."

He whispered the last part in Bonnie's ear. He stood behind her. Her eyes had lowered the more he had went on. He was pegging her again; her life.

"Bonnie."

He said her name carefully. Bonnie looked at him. His eyes told her they were in this together, that they would make it out; that he was here for her too. Her mind had been thinking ahead, to how she was going to be the one to figure out the next step now that a mass killing of the Originals was out of the question. And he hadn't even come for her. She had been about to walk out of the mansion when she'd spotted Damon. And that was her only option: to walk out, on her own two feet and by herself. Not carried out, not rescued. And not bargained for.

She felt Klaus' presence leave, felt free of his shadow.

Damon tried to escape again.

"Stop," she said, while looking at Stefan.

Klaus steepled his hands.

Bonnie slowly looked from Stefan to the experienced vampire. "Stop," she said more sternly.

Klaus grinned and then walked over to Damon, slowly, making sure that Stefan understood what was happening. He forcefully grabbed the struggling vampire's chin and carried out Bonnie's request.

Stefan swallowed, feeling like he held too much influence in a very precarious situation. And he'd never been good in precarious situations, never been good at negotiating, at smoothing things over and bringing someone to his point of view. He never had the right words, so he used force and threatened. None of that would be of any use here. Words failed him as he looked at Bonnie. It was absurd to even consider, but he wondered if in bending to Elijah's will they'd succeeded in giving Klaus a new ally.

"Do you know what I do to vampires who turn witches?"

He swallowed and slowly looked at Klaus.

"I kill them."

**Fin**


End file.
